The present invention relates to a system and method for rapid weighing of items. More particularly it relates to scale systems used in postage metering systems to weigh, and determine postage for, mailpieces or the like.
Postal scale systems are well known. Such scale systems weigh a mailpiece and determine the appropriate postage for that mailpiece as a function of the weight. Postal mailing systems where a mailpiece is transported onto a postage scale system, the appropriate postage is determined, and the mailpiece is then transported to postage metering system for imprinting with a postal indicium representative of the postage determined are also known. One such system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,878; issued May 10, 1988. In such systems there is a constant need to increase the rate at which the scale can determine the weight of a mailpiece in order that the throughput of the system can be increased.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,787,048; issued: Nov. 22, 1988, discloses one approach to decreasing the time required for a postage scale system to determine the weight of a mailpiece. The system disclosed in this patent takes advantage of the structure of postage rate charts, i.e., the function that relates the weight of the mailpiece to the appropriate postage amount. Such rate charts provide a constant postage value for all weights between a pair of predetermined weight breaks. The system of the '048 patent takes advantage of this by use of an algorithm where a first estimate of the weight is made and used to determine the postage amount unless the first estimate is within a predetermined distance of a break point, in which case a second more accurate estimate is made.
A basic cause of the delay in determining weight for a mail piece is the tendency for a scale system to oscillate in response to the arrival of the mailpiece on the system. These oscillations are damped, but only slowly arrive at a new stable output value representative of the weight of the mail piece. Heretofore systems have relied on an averaging process over a number of samples taken over a number of cycles of the oscillations to approximate the weight output. While systems using such averaging type algorithms have generally proved satisfactory in the past, presently they are approaching limits such that it is difficult to increase the throughput of postage metering systems using such algorithms. This problem can be exacerbated by the presence of external vibrations, which can slow or even prevent the scale system output from converging to a sufficiently accurate approximation of the weight.
Thus it is the object of the present invention to provide a scale system, and a postage metering system incorporating such scale system, which can more rapidly determine the weight of a mailpiece or the like.